So much of climbing is mental. Some days the simplest climbs are hopelessly intimidating, while on other days they go like walking the dog at Drake Park. The Three Sisters Marathon – climbing North, Middle, and South Sisters within twenty-four hours – was first done in 1931, and continues to be done by a handful of climbers each year. The Marathon requires that you have one of your “in-the-groove” days, when you have confidence, balance, and rhythm. This saves energy and makes your climbing faster and safer. I always start my climbs wondering if I will have my groove for that day.
Alpine starts are a strange experience. I left the house as the bars were closing, two different worlds meeting at butt ends. I started the drive to the Pole Creek Trailhead listening to the blues guitars of BB King and Eric Clapton and looking out for drunk drivers. Soon the washboard road helped my transition to silence. By 2:30 am I was on the trail, alone, with the only sounds coming from my steps, my breathing, and the creaking of my pack. My mind was at rest, or maybe asleep, focused on my steps in the flat light of the halogen headlamp.
I made it to the alpine meadows below Hayden Glacier in an hour and twenty minutes. Many of my climbing buddies swear that the Southwest Ridge is the ideal way to climb North Sister. I’ve climbed that route three times, and each time the trip was long, tiring, and I ended up cursing a lot. This time my plan was to follow the climber’s trail to the meadows, and work my way south-west until I found a second climbers’ trail leading up beside Hayden Glacier and on to the South Ridge. On this moonless night the stars were stunning: Orion dominating the sky, the V of Taurus, the endless star cluster of Pleiades, all set off by a bright orange Jupiter and the Milky Way. Moonless nights make for great stargazing, but make for inefficient travel. I didn’t get lost, but I did spend three minutes at anaerobic threshold trying to get over an unexpected 30 foot sand embankment that was much steeper and looser than I had imagined. When I got to the top of the embankment, I knew I would have a good day because I was sure that I had just completed the hardest part of the climb. Such unreasonable optimism was a good sign.
Two weeks earlier I had made a recognizance trip of North Sister with Mark May. I finally sorted out the easiest way along the south shoulder of the mountain, underneath the Camel’s Hump. This made the trip to the Terrible Traverse just another carefree slog up a scree field. North Sister can so often end up being an epic, but for the Marathon to go, North has to go easily. The first part of the Terrible Traverse was unusually stable. The second part of the Traverse was dicier, with the foot-trail nearly obscured with “dinner plates” sliding off to a cliff. The Bowling Alley was more straightforward than I had remembered it, making the whole climb comfortable and fun. I summitted North in 4 hours and 45 minutes, took a few photos, and quickly headed down the easy scree slopes to Middle.
What, earlier in the season, appears to be an innocent snow slope at the base of the South Ridge of North, reveals itself by the end of summer to be the crevasse ridden top of Collier Glacier. A couple of jumps over deep but narrow crevasses and I was on my way. I made the summit of Middle by 9:30 am. I spent twenty minutes refueling and chatting with some young guys and their dog, who had hiked up from a camp above Chambers Lakes. If there is an easy way down the south side of Middle Sister, I wish someone would show it to me. I got down in an hour and ten minutes, but it seemed needlessly tiring.
The traverse between Middle and South Sister, across the Chambers’ Lakes area, is the prettiest piece of land in Oregon, and certainly one of the prettiest in the country. I stopped again for ten minutes to drink down another liter of fluid and enjoy the scenery. Fluid, more than food, is a key factor in the Marathon. Most people who have done the Marathon have given this issue great thought and have their favorite strategy. Some climbers get water along the way, filtering or treating it, and others stash extra water bottles in advance. I had decided to follow the simple strategy of taking two gallons of energy drink with me. I completed four liters of fluid by the pass between Middle and South, and had four more liters for the rest of the trip. With this strategy of high fluid intake, I felt strong all day long, more than making up for the extra weight.
I started up the 3000 feet to the summit of South Sister by noon. I’ve done the North Ridge of South Sister twice before, and each time I’ve completed it I’ve sworn that it was the last time I would do the route. Like an alcoholic who can’t quite stay on the wagon, I’ve now taken the pledge a third time. The crux of the route is making your way around a large rock fin at about 9800 feet elevation. The route up to the fin is a straightforward enough slog, with some simple scrambling as you near the fin. The standard route is to stay close to the fin until you reach a corner, which has twenty feet of solid rock (5.0?). The problem is that the ground going up along the fin would be better approached with ice tools and crampons. The ground is steep and very insecure. At one point a small slip of my foot set off a thunderous rock avalanche. I was lucky to be traveling solo that day, because anyone below me on the route would certainly have been swept down under that bombardment. When I got the relative safety of the rock corner, I stupidly did not take into account my pack and my poles. I started to make my way up the rock, only to find my poles jamming into a rock roof above me, keeping me from completing a move and leaving me in an awkward stance ten feet up. I was stymied for a minute or two, but worked my way around and up.
Once above the fin, it’s a simple two hundred feet of scree and sand to a six foot rock wall, and then you are there. You stem the wall, swing your foot up – voila, you are on the summit. I’ve done it half a dozen times, no worries. This time I swung my leg up and cracked it on the rock. This left me with bloody trousers and my only souvenir for the trip, a swollen knee. It seemed a bit ridiculous to have duffed the last and easiest rock move of the day. Despite my awkward arrival, I got to the summit at 2:30 p.m., twelve hours on.
In talking with some very nice people on the summit of South, one lady figured out that I belonged to my wife, whom she had passed just a bit before. So without delay I headed off to the other side of the crater. I knew that Kelly and our friend Ann were trying to climb South today, but I hadn’t hoped that we would meet on the summit. Furthermore, after more than a year of battling early arthritis and debilitating back spasms, I wasn’t sure she would be ready for such a big project. I was so glad to see her and Ann, and much more impressed with her climb than with mine, given all she had overcome. After a bit of talk, I decided to head down at my own pace, fearing that if I slowed down my body would shut down.
I kept pace down the “highway” and through the crowds that is the South Sister South Side. Hiking that last mile in the trees, the Latin rhythms of Jarabe de Palo were playing in my head. Over and over, I heard in my mind’s ear the chorus “a lo loco se vive mejor,” which means something like “to live a little crazy is best.” At 5:00 p.m. I finished at the Devil’s Lake trailhead, fourteen and a half hours after I started – sore knee, a bit tired, but still “in-the-groove.”